In a moment the boat was adrift, the mast steeped, and the
Shenandoah left to pursue her mysterious voyage at the will of
the currents of the sea.

"You're not going to the island, Paddy," cried Dick, as the old man
put the boat on the port tack.

"You be aisy," replied the other, "and don't be larnin' your
gran'mother. How the divil d'ye think I'd fetch the land sailin'
dead in the wind's eye?"

"Has the wind eyes?"

Mr Button did not answer the question. He was troubled in his
mind. What if the island were inhabited? He had spent several
years in the South Seas. He knew the people of the Marquesas and
Samoa, and liked them. But here he was out of his bearings.

However, all the troubling in the world was of no use. It was a
case of the island or the deep sea, and, putting the boat on the
starboard tack, he lit his pipe and leaned back with the tiller in
the crook of his arm. His keen eyes had made out from the deck of
the brig an opening in the reef, and he was making to run the
dinghy abreast of the opening, and then take to the sculls and row
her through.

Now, as they drew nearer, a sound came on the breeze--sound
faint and sonorous and dreamy. It was the sound of the breakers
on the reef. The sea just here was heaving to a deeper swell, as if